BASF Combines Water, Oilfield, Mining Solutions Businesses

To support its growth strategy, BASF officially combined its water, oilfield and mining solutions businesses into one global business unit. This move enables BASF to capitalize on the strengths of each business, sharpen its market approach and leverage operational and innovation synergies to better meet customer needs.

“The combination of these businesses will create further synergies and drive forward our innovation strategies with an even stronger team,” said Steffen Kudis, senior vice president, Water, Oilfield and Mining Solutions, BASF. “As all three businesses include parts of the polyacrylamide value chain, our operations, including those in North America, can now be jointly managed and customers will benefit from proximity, market intelligence and specific business focus."

BASF is investing in its U.S. site infrastructure by continuously increasing the efficiency of its existing polyacrylamide (PAM) value chain operations in West Memphis, Ark., and Suffolk, Va. At the Suffolk site, the next step is to establish a new bio-acrylamide process in 2014, to support future growth of PAM capacity in North America.

BASF is also strengthening its innovation pipeline for both new products and PAM Process Technology. PAM products are used for key processes in industrial and municipal water treatment, for the drilling and completion of oil wells, and in mineral processing reagents in the mining industry.